Article: Latina/o Immigrants in the Racist Era of Trump by Alvaro Huerta, Ph.D.

Latina/o Immigrants in the Racist Era of Trump

President Donald J. Trump represents an existential threat to immigrants in
the United States. More specifically, Trump’s immigration rhetoric and
policies consist of racist, xenophobic, enforcement-only and divisive
(i.e., “us-versus-them”) political positions. Moreover, Trump’s domestic
positions on immigration interconnect with his foreign diplomacy based on
isolationist and unilateralist policies. While former U.S. presidents
espoused (and implemented) similar anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies,
such as the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
and the internment of an estimated 120,000 Japanese immigrants and citizens
during WW II, Trump, during his short presidency, aims to re-imagine or
re-invent the country’s dark past with his racist slogan, “Make America
Great Again”—which Trump originally claimed he coined. However, Trump
actually stole it from the late President Ronald Reagan. The
“Hustler-in-Chief”
lies so much, it must be difficult for him—along with his lackey apologists
and fellow liars, like John F. Kelly, Rudy Giuliani, Sarah Huckabee
Sanders, etc.—to keep track of all his lies. I just hope that the brave
comedian Michelle Wolf returns to the White House Correspondent's dinner,
so she can ridicule and rip into Kelly and Giuliani in same manner she
exposed Sander’s infinite lies
at this year’s memorable event
.

Americans and people around the world shouldn’t be surprised by Trump’s
lies, xenophobic (or anti-immigrant) rhetoric and policies. On June 16,
2015, for instance, when he delivered his “famous” presidential
announcement speech (or “infamous,” depending on your political
affiliation), Trump launched into a diatribe against Mexicans: “…When
Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not
sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots
of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us. They're bringing
drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists…”

In this racist speech with his immigrant wife by his side, Trump clearly
connected with a significant segment of the American electorate receptive
to anti-Mexicanism. In his brilliant essay,
“La Realidad: The Realities of Anti-Mexicanism—A Paradigm”
(HuffPost, January 25, 2017), UCLA History Professor Juan
Gómez-Quiñones posits that “U.S. anti-Mexicanism is a race premised set of
historical and contemporary ascriptions, convictions and discriminatory
practices inflicted on persons of Mexican descent, longstanding and
pervasive in the United States… Anti-Mexicanism is a form of nativism
practiced by colonialists and their inheritors…”

While the dark history of racism against African Americans is highly
documented and well known, such as slavery, Jim Crow and police abuse,
public knowledge of racist policies (historical and contemporary) against
individuals of Mexican heritage—immigrants and citizens—is desperately
lacking. For example, in addition to the imperialist U.S. war against
Mexico during the mid-1800s (1846-1848)—where Mexico lost half of its
territory—the U.S. government has implemented (to the present) racist
campaigns and policies towards Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans (or
Chicanas/os). As part of the many draconian and inhumane cases, this
included mass deportation campaigns of this racialized group, such as the “
Mexican Repatriation
” during the 1930s and “Operation Wetback” during the 1950s. In their
insightful book,
Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s
, Dr. Francisco E. Balderrama and Mr. Raymond Rodríguez argue that an
estimated one million individuals of Mexican heritage were deported during
the Great Depression, where an estimated 60 percent consisted of U.S.
citizens. In terms of “Operation Wetback” during the
mid-1900s, then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the deportation of
over one million individuals of Mexican heritage—immigrants and citizens.

Inspired by Eisenhower, during his presidential campaign, Trump praised
“Operation Wetback.” By doing so, then-candidate Trump sent a clear signal
to his white nativist base, where his anti-immigration policies will
consist of enforcement-only measures, resurrecting the mass deportations of
brown immigrants of the 20th Century. The underlying premise of Trump’s
mass deportation fantasies (of the past) and policies (of the present)
center on the eugenics ideology (or pseudoscience), from the late-1800s to
the present. Coined by Francis Galton, this pseudoscience is based on the
premise that to “advance” the human “race,” individuals with “good”
traits/genes (“whites”) or so-called “desirable” traits/genes should
reproduce with each other.

Throughout history, the eugenics ideology/movement has been used by racist
individuals and groups, like the Nazi leaders in Germany or neo-Nazis in
the United States, to claim that the Aryan race is genetically superior
compared to other “races” or groups. Prior to the rise of Nazism, however,
white Americans used this pseudoscience to argue that they were superior
compared to racialized groups, such as African Americans, Native Americans,
Asian Americans and Mexican Americans. For instance, as a way to justify
their racist policies towards African Americans throughout the late-1800s
to the mid-1900s, like residential segregation and whites-only spaces
(public and private), white American leaders and white citizens claimed (to
the present) that whites were/are superior to blacks.

In his
op-ed
on the plight of undocumented youth, the award-winning writer Michael
D’Antonio connects Trump’s decision to end
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA), which provides temporary deportation relief and work permits for
qualified undocumented youth, to eugenics: “There is another distinction
that sets Dreamers apart, of course: Most of them are from Mexico, and they
are not white. Trump's move to end DACA, therefore, must be understood
within the historical context of America's exclusionary immigration
policies, the bulk of which have relied on the pseudoscience of eugenics” ( Los Angeles Times, September 17, 2017).

In terms of being a divisive leader, Trump has played his “us-versus-them”
card throughout his presidential campaign (to the present). Be it Mexican
immigrants, Muslim Americans or African American athletes (e.g., African
American professional athletes who refuse to stand for the American flag
due to police abuse), Trump represents the next “great-white-hope” to
protect white Americans against the so-called black and brown “barbarians.”
Under this context, Trump’s fetish or fantasy for a southern border wall,
which Mexico will miraculously “pay for,” makes absolute sense. Instead of
focusing on bridges that unite us, for instance, Trump is focusing on walls
that divide us. In his insightful book,
Why Walls Won't Work: Repairing the US-Mexico Divide
, Dr. Michael Dear brilliantly makes case that walls don’t work.

While Trump has solidified his racist credentials, there’s no denying the
large share of American voters—almost 63 million voted for him against
former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on November 7, 2017—who bought
his racist message. For example, of the millions of Trump supporters, how
many of them abandoned Trump when he reportedly disparaged immigrants from
El Salvador, Haiti and African countries during a White House-led meeting
on January 11, 2018, where Trump reportedly said, “Why are we having all
these people from shithole countries come here?” ( The Washington Post, January 12, 2018). To remove any doubt of his
racist credentials, Trump also inquired about bringing more immigrants from
countries like Norway.

By examining Trump’s domestic immigration policies based on his racist,
xenophobic, enforcement-only and divisive political positions, we can
better understand or examine his foreign positions based on isolationist
and unilateralist policies. For instance, while Trump insists on building
his southern or U.S.-Mexico border wall, where the tax payers will
eventually pay for it (not Mexico), what incentives does Mexico (as a
so-called friendly nation) have to cooperate or trade with the United
States, especially with other viable options, like China or European Union
(EU)? While Mexico’s ruling political party—the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)—constantly caves or bows to
Trump, there’s no guarantee that if a progressive candidate like Andrés
Manuel López Obrador wins the Mexican presidential election on July 1,
2018, Mexico will continue to capitulate to los gringos or the
“Orange-Man-in-the-White House.”

In short, while the U.S. remains a superpower with asymmetric diplomatic
relations throughout world, its leaders—Trump and the morally
complicit/bankrupt Republican Party—and its citizens must decide if they
want to use their enormous military and economic power for good or evil?
Unless Trump gets impeached, where his entire administration resigns,
including the equally dangerous Vice President Mike Pence, a significant
segment of the world—especially the marginalized and oppressed—will
continue to perceive the American citizen via a singular gaze: “The Ugly
American.”

About The Author

Alvaro Huerta, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of urban and regional planning and ethnic and women’s studies at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. As a Chicano scholar-activist, he is the author of Reframing the Latino Immigration Debate: Towards a Humanistic Paradigm, (San Diego State University Press, 2013). Dr. Huerta holds a Ph.D. in city and regional planning from UC Berkeley. He also holds an M.A. in urban planning and a B.A. in history—both from UCLA.

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of ILW.COM.

Alvaro, wouldn't it be more productive to try to find ways to work with Trump than to write op-eds explaining why you think he is a racist? Do you expect him to see the light when he reads your article and renounce his evil ways?

And how many republicans do you think will read an op-ed entitled, "Latina/o Immigrants in the Racist Era of Trump,"?